My 9/11

ON THIS DAY, ten years ago at 7 a.m., my clock radio clicked on and began talking. I stirred groggily in the dawn's bathing sunlight. Disembodied words from the NPR station began drifting into my semi-consciousness. Towers. New York. Partly cloudy. And then: "To repeat, all airspace over the United States has been closed." What?! My eyes snapped open as I went from half asleep to full alert in an instant. That is how my 9/11 began. The commute to the newsroom that morning is seared into my memory. The otherworldly eeriness of driving under silent skies devoid of aircraft. The shocked look on the faces of fellow commuters, each encased in a moving bubble of radio news that kept getting worst. And the unsettling feeling of driving into the heart of downtown Phoenix amid skyscrapers that now took on the character of looming towers. In those early hours of 9/11, it was easy to think that we were next. Some 14 hours later, my workday at the Arizona Republic finally ended. Ten years later, I can watch those planes slam into the Twin Towers without feeling a punch to the gut. The shock and anger have yielded to the passage of time. Bin Laden's "Blitz" never materialized. But ten years ago, such an offensive seemed inevitable. Ten years ago, when I retired to the space where my 9/11 began, a thought occurred to me as I flicked out the lights: "So this is what war feels like." I hope I never have that feeling again.